Ken Berwitz
Hillary Clinton is a human being. Everyone knowsthat.
But she is a de-humanized human being. Andeveryone seems to know that too….even her.
What is a de-humanized human being? In Ms.Clinton\’s case, it means that, due to her comportment over many years, shecomes across as scripted, focus-group tested, opportunistic, and thereforephony and dishonest.
Not surprisingly, Ms. Clinton wants to re-humanizeherself – especially since the odds are excellent that she will soon be runningagainst the very, very humanized Joe Biden.
But, ironically, her attempt on this morning\’s TodayShow was a clinic in how NOT to do so. Specifically, she engaged in a televised “town hall meeting”which had all the spontaneity of a moon phase….complete with a fawning TVhost, in the form of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie.
Kyle Drennan, of newsbusters.org, has an excellent piece on this fiasco. Let me show you just a couple of excerpts:
Throughouta live townhall event on Monday\’s Today, Democratic frontrunnerHillary Clinton was treated to one softball after another from her adoringsupporters at NBC. One sycophantic fan set the tone: “Secretary Clinton,you\’ve had a lot of tough questions this morning. This may be the toughest oneyou get all day. But many years ago we saw another Clinton at his inaugurationplay an instrument and have a song. What song or instrument would you play atyours?”
Momentslater, attendee Esther Dickinson proclaimed: “Well, first, I want to thankyou for your candidacy, you\’re such a role model for women my age. And so thankyou for putting yourself out there.”
Co-hostSavannah Guthrie – who interviewed Clinton prior to the townhall event -wrapped up the infomercial by wondering: “You often say you\’re not runningbecause you\’re a woman, you\’re running on the merits, and one of your merits isthat you are a woman. So my question is, what are the merits of a femaleleader? What does a female leader bring that a man doesn\’t?”
Asthe hour-long segment ended, fellow co-host Matt Lauer remarked: “It wasinteresting to see her in that type of a situation, in that kind offorum. I thought the questions were good.” News anchor NatalieMorales chimed in: “Really great questions, a very informedcrowd…”
What a great idea. Let\’s throw a”spontaneous” town hall meeting – among Hillary loving voters and aHillary-loving host. That\’ll be sure to make everyone see Hillary as awarm, fuzzy human being.
I\’ll just bet it convinced, oh, about one or two dozenpeople nationwide.
Ok, let\’s talk honestly:
-Every recentpoll shows Hillary Clinton with less than 50% in New Hampshire and losing toBernie Sanders. This means there are a lot of New Hampshirites skeptical of aClinton candidacy.
-But in this “town hall meeting”, all buttwo questions to her are love-fests, and the two which aren\’t, provide opportunitiesto rail against income inequality and war – both of which – suh-prahz,suh-prahz – are major parts of Ms. Clinton\’s campaign strategy.
-And that is before we get to the fact that, in NewHampshire, which went Democrat by just 5% in 2012 – 46% voted Republican -there was not one question during the entire “town hall meeting”which came from Hillary Clinton\’s right.
Does what you just read come across as spontaneous? Credible? Does it in any way re-humanize Hillary Clinton? Ordoes it look like just the latest scripted, focus-group tested, opportunistic, andtherefore phony and dishonest, dog and pony show?
If this is the best her campaign staff can do, it\’s little wonder that her poll numbers are heading south faster than a snowbird after the first frost.
